All the Perfumes of Arabia
by Elspeth1
Summary: He never told her she was beautiful. She never called him anything but his code name. [Agent 13xWinter Soldier]


**DISCLAIMER: **All characters and situation appearing herein were originally created by Marvel Comics. No profit is being made off this work.

**Posted by:** Elspethdixon

**Pairings:** Sharon Carter/Winter Soldier

**Warnings:** Non-canon pairing. Spoilers for Captain America #25, if it's even possible to be spoiled for that anymore.

**Notes:** The longest and hardest part of writing this ficlet was (I kid you not) deciding whether the bike's engine should be a knucklehead, a flathead, or a panhead, because I am just that lame. As for the title... If the writer of Frontline can indulge their gratuitous litgeekery, so can I.

* * *

**All the Perfumes of Arabia**

Her hands had gone red and dry, hot water and harsh soap stripping the moisture from her skin until the backs of her knuckles cracked and bled.

The first hotel room had only one bed, and she had sat on the edge of it in nothing but her underwear and a SHIELD t-shirt, crying because she hadn't realized how much dried blood had soaked into her jeans until she'd taken them off.

He pulled them out of her grasp and set them aside—they couldn't throw them away here, had to find some place where bloody clothes in the garbage wouldn't immediately attract police suspicion—and took her face in both hands, cold metal against one cheek and warm flesh on the other.

It wasn't like sleeping with Steve. There was no gentleness, not really even any affection, just sweat and desperation and a strange intensity that made every action seem to take place in slow motion. His hands left bruises on her arms and hips, her nails cut bloody trails in his skin, and still, it wasn't enough.

Neither of them said a word the entire time. Afterward, he looked at the red marks slowly darkening on her body and suggested handcuffs.

He never told her she was beautiful. She never called him anything but his code name.

* * *

The motorcycle got them from New York to DC in only three hours, the two of them speeding through the night with her arms around his waist and Steve's Harley underneath them. It had started life as an old '48 panhead, but then Stark had gotten his paws on it, and now it could outpace a Formula One car and do almost everything except fly.

They had gone over it for bugs three times, but the only one they found had been Nick Fury's.

* * *

She'd never known what sort of things she had inside her until she needed them.

Lyle Talbot had worked for SHIELD for six years. She had known him by sight, nodded to him when they passed one another in the helicarrier's officers' mess. He looked just the same now as he had then—you never hit them in the face if you wanted them to talk—and he stared at her as if she might be his salvation.

"I don't know where Lukin is, I swear," he insisted frantically. "I never reported to him directly, or to Zola!"

"Of course you didn't." The Winter Soldier's face was expressionless beneath his black domino mask. "You weren't important enough. But the man you _did_ report to will have reported to another man, and _that_ man will have reported to another man, and one of them will eventually lead us to Lukin."

"You don't understand! He'll kill me!" Talbot's eyes were wide, frantic, staring at her in mute appeal. It wasn't just an excuse; he believed what he was saying utterly.

"He won't get the chance," Winter Soldier promised. He turned slightly to address Sharon, never taking his eyes off the prisoner. "Go watch the door."

"He will, he will, you don't understand! Agent Carter-"

Sharon went, not arguing the role assignments. All high-level SHIELD operatives had training in interrogation techniques, but Winter Soldier had learned from the best.

Half an hour later, Winter Soldier emerged from the room, shut the door behind him gently, and told her the name.

Sharon repeated it, burning it into her memory. Chris Anderson had been a SHIELD agent as well, working in Eastern Germany throughout the Cold War until he retired in '93. One more link in the chain bringing them closer to Red Skull.

"We'll get him," she told Winter Soldier, a promise as much to herself as to him. "Soon."

His metal hand was cold on her face, and left smears of Talbot's blood along her cheekbone. She ignored them, closing her eyes and leaning her weight into the kiss until she had him pinned against the closed door.

The only blood that mattered would never wash off.

* * *


End file.
